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by Dave Lindorff

I'm going to go out on a limb here and predict that, barring some incredible act of criminal cynicism such as the bombardment of Iran by the president, the Democrats are going to take over the House of Representatives.

That being the case, I propose that it's time all those patriots and lovers of liberty, all those who oppose the administration's mad imperial military policies, all those who recognize the so-called War on Terror for what it is--a War on America, all those whose stomachs turned at the sight of the fatal drowning of New Orleans, all those who are outraged at a president who claims the right to violate laws at will, to ignore acts of Congress and to snub rulings of the Supreme Court, all those who are sick of seeing their government function like a whorehouse for corporate Johns, all those who are angry at having a government that tortures and kidnaps people, including children, in our name, all those who know that there are dark secrets about 9-11 being buried by traitors in the White House, all those who despair at seeing the Bill of Rights ripped out of the Constitution article by article, begin a mass campaign to make impeachment of President Bush item one on the agenda of the next Congress.

I propose that the anti-war and impeachment movements combine forces
and organize a massive petition campaign to obtain five million
signatures calling on the Congress to initiate impeachment hearings on
President Bushâ€™s Constitutional high crimes, misdemeanors, treason and
bribery, and that this petition be delivered to the future Speaker of
the House, Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) and the future chair of the House
Judiciary Committee, Rep. John Conyers (D-MI). Delivery of this
document could be made on January 20, 2007, on the sixth anniversary of
Bushâ€™s benighted first inauguration. If the grassroots campaign
organizations that have mobilized for the election turn to gathering
signatures off their same voter lists right after Election Day, it
shouldnâ€™t be hard to get at least that many signatures. (There are
already a number of groups, like Veterans for Peace, collecting
signatures. These efforts can all be coordinated.)

I propose that this petition then be carried by demonstrators in a
reverse "Un-Inauguration Impeachment March" that could assemble at the
White House and proceed down Pennsylvania Avenue to the Capitol steps
(retracing the impeachment march Bush tried to make before his
entourage started to face heckling and eggs). There, a set of proposed
articles of impeachment could be formally read out, perhaps by members
of Congress who would later be submitting them as formal impeachment
bills to the House Judiciary Committee.

We are going to need something like this because the Democratic
leadership--most notably Pelosi, but including the likes of Democratic
House Campaign Committee Chair Rep. Rahm Emanuel (D-IL) and many of
those in the Democratic Leadership Council--are publicly stating that
they will try to block any impeachment bills.

Although it is clear from many national polls that more Americans today
want this criminal president and usurper impeached than ever wanted
either Clinton or Nixon impeached, these craven and cowardly â€œleadersâ€
seem to think they will be punished by the Republicans if they attempt
it. This is nonsense. It is the Republicans who have been dismantling
Congress as a functioning branch of government, who are out of touch
and who are now being rejected by the public. The public is not turning
to the Democrats because it wants them to be pleasant and collegial in
Washington. People are turning to the Democrats because they are sick
and tired of the crooks, the charlatans, the megalomaniacs and the
crackpots who have been running the country and the Constitution into
the ground and sending our kids into pointless, endless wars. People
want resolute action from the Democrats, not pussyfooting.

Pelosi is so out of it when it comes to her constituency, that she
seems not to realize that the very ballot that has her listed as a
candidate this November in her San Francisco congressional district
includes a referendum on impeachment, which is likely to pass.

Instead of goading Pelosi into making pledges not to impeach, as
mainstream reporters have been doing, someone should ask her and other
Democrats who are ducking the issue whether or not they believe the
president has been violating the Constitution and undermining freedoms
and the separation of powers. If they answer yes, then they should be
asked why they donâ€™t feel obligated to take action in defense of
liberty and the Constitution.

These weak-kneed sissies are worse than simply political cowards--they
are violators of their own oaths of office, which commit them to
upholding and defending the Constitution of the United States--a
document which even they have to admit is under grave attack by this
president and his co-conspirators. If Pelosi&Co. will not stand up
and defend that document and the institution of Congress that Bush has
so defiled with his signing statements, We the People must make them do
it.

The first step, of course, is to throw out the Republican majority in Congress.

Then we have to turn our political sights and our righteous rage on the
Democrats who, through their decade of habitual cowering, have enabled
and are now protecting this criminal regime from the aggressive
investigation that it so richly deserves.